12 November 2025 at 18:30 Suzanne Freeman: Intelligence failures before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine: Lessons for Asia at Temple University Japan

Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies
Temple University Japan

12 November 2025: 18:30-20:00
Temple University Japan room 303

RSVP: dujarric@temple.edu

1-14-29 Taishido, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo
東京都世田谷区太子堂1-14-29
By train: Sangenjaya Station/三軒茶屋駅
Exit South A/南口A
https://www.tuj.ac.jp/maps/tokyo
https://www.tuj.ac.jp/jp/maps/tokyo



Overview

In February 2022, both Russia and the United States expected that a war between Russia and Ukraine would be short and dominated by Russia. This talk will discuss the comparative intelligence failures in Russia and the United States at the start of the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Both countries overestimated Russian military capabilities and underestimated Ukrainian military capabilities. Russia expected to advance quickly across Ukraine to the capital. Many US intelligence agencies predicted the invasion but expected Russia's capabilities would quickly overpower Ukraine. Why did both countries reach the same incorrect assessment of Russia's capabilities? This talk traces the pathways to these intelligence failures and draws on Suzanne's research about the foreign policy role of intelligence agencies in authoritarian states and the causes of war.

Speakers

Suzanne Freeman is a Changemaker Postdoctoral Fellow at American University's School of International Service in the Foreign Policy & Global Security Department. Her research on international security examines civil-intelligence relations, the causes of war, nuclear issues, and authoritarian politics. Freeman's book project, anchored in her work on Russia and the Soviet Union, examines the strategies that authoritarian intelligence agencies employ to intervene in their own state's foreign policy decision-making process about the use of force. Her research has been published in PS: Political Science & Politics, Politico EU, and War on the Rocks. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she was affiliated with the Security Studies Program.



Moderator: Robert Dujarric, Co-Director, ICAS.



Contact/RSVP: dujarric@temple.edu. Feel free to circulate this invitation.



Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies
Temple University, Japan Campus

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